


Ashes

by dettiot



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 20:31:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dettiot/pseuds/dettiot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Hey now, hey now, don't dream, it's over.</i> A summer night for Veronica and Logan.  Set between seasons 1 and 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes

Some nights, she could predict that she'd have the dream. Other times, it snuck up on her. Knowing the dream was coming didn't change it, didn't make it easier to deal with. It still happened the same way. She would be lying in her bed, turned towards the windows. Suddenly, she had the sensation that someone was lying behind her, the warmth of a male body seeping into her bones. She would feel so safe, so protected, that she couldn't help a little sigh of contentment as she rolled over to see who had joined her. But then she'd be back inside that freezer, and the pleasant warmth was now a deadly heat. She banged against her prison, not caring that her flesh blistered when it came in contact with the walls, because she was so scared that she was going to die. And at the moment when it seemed like she was going to be burned, she would jerk awake. 

Veronica sat up in bed, feeling her breath come fast as the dream/nightmare cleared itself away. The air conditioning wasn't quite up to fighting the heat of a late July night, so her room was muggy and close. Dawn was still distant: she had only dropped off to sleep two hours before, after an hour of tossing and turning. She raked a hand through her hair and tried to calm herself down, but then threw back the covers to pad into the kitchen. She grabbed a soda from the fridge, then picked up her purse and quietly went outside. 

It was warm, but a light breeze made the heat seem less oppressive. She strolled down to one of the tables in the courtyard, the one that was near the fence and allowed a look out at the ocean. She dropped into a chair, opened her soda and took a long drink. She sat for a few moments, staring at the ocean and taking sips of too-sugary soda. Then, with a furtive look around, she pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her purse and lit up.

The first drag immediately relaxed her, and Veronica settled back in the chair. She'd never smoked before, other than an occasional bit of weed at parties. But her hands had started fidgeting, always looking for something to do with them. One day Weevil had shoved a pack at her and told her to calm the fuck down. The look on his face told her he knew why she was so jittery, but at least he didn't say anything else. So she had started smoking; only one a day, really. She had found that the nicotine calmed her, made sleeping easier. The dream often came when she didn't get her fix, and so here she was, in the middle of the night while her father slept in their apartment, smoking and trying to ignore her dream.

She had been prepared to have nightmares about that night, about nearly being burnt alive and seeing her father on fire. But the way the nightmares began--that was what shook her up. Because she knew who laid behind her, who slipped an arm tentatively around her midsection and drew her closer.

She frowned. She had spent too much time inside her head this summer, since anyone she considered a friend or acquaintance had gotten the hell out of Neptune. Duncan was travelling with his parents and had only sent her a few emails, none of them longer than a paragraph. Wallace was at some summer basketball camp, Weevil was working, her friendship with Meg had fallen apart, and Mac was camping. Logan--

She sighed and inhaled deeply on her cigarette. Those days in the spring, when it was revealed that Aaron Echolls had killed Lilly Kane . . . they weren't days she liked to think about. While Duncan was welcomed back to the 09'ers with open arms--overtures that Veronica had firmly rebuffed when made to her--Logan was the subject of gossip and innuendoes. He hadn't attended the last three weeks of classes, and no one really knew what was happening with him. She knew that Duncan, Meg, even Weevil tried to help him, but Logan walled himself off. He didn't see anyone, didn't make any statements, just shut himself up in his house. She knew that she should try to talk to him, explain to him the way things had happened, how she was so sorry at how he had gotten caught up in the suspicion. But she could never find the words. She couldn't help thinking that even if Logan wanted her apology, he'd never want her to know that he did, and so he'd never listen. 

Still, she was working up her courage to finally approach him when the news came out that he had left. Sure, Trina tried to cover up his disappearance as a visit to family out of state, but Veronica needed only a few minutes and a computer to determine that Logan had vanished three days after the end of school, by withdrawing as much cash as he could from his accounts. Since he wasn't needed to testify at his father's trial, the local law enforcement hadn't paid his disappearance much notice. 

Veronica tapped the ash into the soda can. She was surprised he waited as long as he did; she'd expected him to scam some money from Duncan, from Trina, and leave a long time before he did. She didn't blame him for leaving, could understand why he left. 

Understanding didn't help her conscience, though. Because the thing that made everything worse was that she'd do everything the same, if it meant that she'd know who really killed Lilly. For the past year, her life had been about finding the real killer, and everything else could go to hell. 

She hadn't realized that she'd be in hell, too. 

She angrily finished her cigarette, hating the way she was thinking, hating the way she was feeling. She felt more like a character in some bad novel, doing nothing and letting guilt distract her. That wasn't Veronica Mars--she was a doer. She made things happen, got answers. She rolled her head back on her neck, looking up at the stars.

There weren't any answers up there, but there also weren't any questions. So Veronica leaned back in her chair and stared up at the sky until it lightened and the stars vanished before the sun. 

XXX

Breathe in, breathe out. Suck the tobacco deep into your lungs. Stare at the stars and wonder why you fucked up everything. Wonder what she's doing, too. 

Logan Echolls didn't exist anymore, except as a distant memory. He had finished his junior year by studying at home, although he was pretty sure pickling himself in rum, whiskey, and vodka hadn't helped his GPA. It had been a month since his dance along the Coronado Bridge, and he couldn't stand the taunts he kept hearing in his father's voice. So he had taken some cash and gotten the hell out of Dodge. A beat-up car from Weevil and plenty of alcohol seemed to be the ticket. He started driving, only stopping when the voices got too loud and he needed alcohol to make them shut up. There were a hazy few days where he could hardly remember sleeping, just driving or drinking until he passed out, slumped over the wheel by the side of the road. After that, he'd started stopping at a motel once a week or so, to sleep in a real bed, shower, use TV as a sleep aid rather than booze. 

Tonight was one of those nights. He had pulled into a dingy west Texas motel at sunset and paid up. Shower taken, he'd even eaten a cheeseburger at the diner next door, not because he was hungry but because he knew his too-thin body needed food. When he had been walking back, instead of going into his room, he followed a whim and stretched out across the hood of his car, and pulled out his cigarettes. 

The metal of the car was still warm in the deepening cool of the evening. He could hear music coming from the hotel office--ballads of the 80s it sounded like, Morrissey and Spandau Ballet and Crowded House, and he snorted at the pussies that sang on and on about the women who had broken their hearts. "Got your dream right here, boys--guess what, it's over," he muttered, taking a long drag from his cigarette. 

Odd, with all his vices, he'd never really smoked much before--at least not cigarettes. Now, though, he craved nicotine, and he found himself preferring it a bit to drinking. True, smoking didn't give you that fuzzy, numb feeling, but you could smoke anywhere you wanted, as much as you wanted, and who the hell gave a fuck? Certainly not here, with liberal smoking laws that meant most people his age had been smoking for five years already. 

Five years. Five years ago, he had just met Veronica. Thought she was hot, but didn't think much about her after that. Definitely not after Lilly and he got started. He thought of what he had once said, about Lilly not loving him like he loved her. Bullshit, really; how much did a sixteen-year old kid know about love? Especially him. But he knew he loved Lilly, even when he cheated on her and she cheated on him. Their relationship was fucked-up but it was still the best thing he'd ever had. Until Lilly had died, Duncan had dumped Veronica, and after a long strange year, he had found himself kissing his dead girlfriend's best friend. And he'd had something so much better than with Lilly, and he hated himself for thinking that and hated himself for kissing Veronica and hated Veronica for being so hard to hold. No matter how much he had reached for her, she kept slipping away. 

Should have known that it was all a lie, a set-up. She didn't have trust issues any more than he did. The real problem was her being a complete and utter bitch. The latest in the long line of people who judged Logan Echolls to be a waste. He had not missed the irony of becoming an outcast, one that was ostracised more than Veronica had ever been, even by him. He was sure that she was gleeful seeing how what goes around comes around.

At first, his anger at her lack of trust, her betrayal, had been a flame that needed no stoking; it burned him even as he thought longingly of her. Now, though, the flame had become an ember, diminishing just like his opinion of Veronica Mars. So he spent his days driving, his nights drinking, all the while waiting to see how it would end. He knew he'd have to go back, eventually. The press would catch up with him, or maybe Trina would finally remember how a sister was supposed to act and send someone after him. Hell, maybe even Girl Detective would decide to chase after him, to salve her guilty conscience. And he would take great delight in telling her to fuck off. Or, even better, coming home meekly and quietly, watching her writhe in torment during the long drive back to California . . . 

Logan chuckled to himself softly before flicking the butt onto the ground and pulling himself off the hood of the car. It had grown cold, he had smoked three cigarettes, and he wanted a drink. It was time for bed, to see what kind of dreams came tonight. Maybe it'd be the one where she trusted him. Perhaps he'd kill her again, like last night. After all, like father, like son, right?

He paused, standing still and staring up at the evening sky. They said everything was bigger in Texas, and the stars hanging up there certainly seemed to be. "You know what they say about protesting too much, bro," he said softly. Because he knew what dream he really wanted to have. Not any of those other dreams--even the one where they had hot, sweaty sex in front of Duncan and Aaron. 

No, he wanted the one where she slept in his arms, where he was everything she needed him to be, instead of ashes. 

End.


End file.
